‘HUAZ-E-KAUSER! I’VE BEEN LONGING to drink that sweet-tasting water ever since—’
Before I could finish my sentence, I disintegrated into a cloud of light. The next moment I materialized beside a heart-shaped pond filled with sparkling water. Not much bigger than a twelve-person hot tub, the pond was set in a grassy mound a couple of feet off the ground. It was bordered by a dazzling array of exquisite tiles depicting intricate Arabian geometric patterns in blue, white and gold. Water flowed from a golden faucet and collected in a round bowl of white marble. Several rough clay cups lay scattered on the overgrown grass beside the marble bowl. The pond was cordoned off by Day-Glo orange hazard tape that was stuck to wooden posts with flashing lights.
‘Alas! Hauz-e-Kauser is no more,’ Braqeel said in his morose voice. ‘It’s been off limits for quite some time now.’
‘Why? What happened?’ I asked, stunned by the revelation.
‘It’s the water.’ Braqeel said sadly, shaking his head side to side. ‘It is not fit to drink anymore.’
‘But it looks so clear!’
‘Clear but not clean—it’s contaminated.’
‘With what?’
He refused to divulge anything more except that it had been under investigation for quite some time. He then successfully derailed the discussion by diverting my attention to the famous virgins who awaited me.
‘Don’t think that seventy-two is all you’re going to get,’ he told me, as if trying to allay my greatest and most natural fear. ‘If you desire more, all you’ve got to do is tell your ladies to introduce you to their slave girls.’ He flashed me a mischievous smile. ‘They may not be as beautiful, but you’d be surprised by what they can do to heighten a man’s enjoyment of the heavenly sphere.’
‘How many slave girls are we talking about?’ I asked, scratching my head.
‘Each of your seventy-two virgins has been granted seventy-two slave girls,’ he said, his wings quivering with excitement.
‘That’s an awful lot of women!’ I started to feel a bit overwhelmed.
‘Never say that again!’ he hissed, arching his thick brows and piercing me with his black eyes. ‘I’ve never heard that complaint before. You’ve got a problem with women?’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ I added quickly so as not to offend him.
I wanted to tell him about my insanely vibrant sex life serving a horde of wild women in the Dump. I had been there, done that. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t his ordinary pious Joe from earth who was going to start drooling at the promise of unlimited sex with countless women because he hadn’t gotten much in his earthly existence.
Thinking carefully, I decided not to say anything. It would be more interesting to check the place out. For me, this place had always been a mere metaphor, a work of the human imagination. I just stared at the sad, limpid pond before me that was in dire need of the immediate attentions of a Hazmat team. It crossed my mind that if I ever made it back to New York, I would ditch my thesis in favour of something more fruitful. Though what that was, I didn’t know. The sight of the ugly orange hazard tape around this glorious pond that was supposed to be filled with the sweetest tasting water in the whole universe made me feel inexplicably sad and defeated.
Our next stop was a vast green parkland at the centre of which stood a palace of gleaming white marble. The magnificent edifice was topped with a number of steeples and towers of various sizes and was so monumental in scale that it would probably take a lifetime on the back of a swift horse to circle its perimeter.
The delicate crowns of the lofty turrets disappeared into a radiant purple sky with gigantic orbs emitting soft soothing vibrations which circled around each of the towers. Overhead, angels drifted in a formation like migrating swans carrying packages and bundles. The air smelled of jasmine and my skin tingled.
‘My job was to bring you to the Guest House of Al-Jannah,’ Braqeel said to me, pointing toward the colossal mansion. ‘I’m not allowed to go any farther than this.’
‘Guest House?’
‘It’s for people traveling back and forth between Al-Jannah and other worlds,’ he said. ‘You’re on your own from here.’
‘What am I supposed to do now?’ I asked him, feeling alarmed at the prospect of being left to my own devices in such an incredibly vast space where it would take me years just to reach the entrance of the Guest House.
‘To move from one point to another, all you have to do is will it,’ Braqeel said, as if reading my mind. ‘See that entrance?’ He pointed towards the centre of the building where a gate like a glittering reflective mirror stood open and waiting. ‘You are expected in the welcome tent just to the right side of the main gate. Now it’s time for me to get back and pick up my next passenger.’ He stretched his wings and flapped them a few times like a runner warming up for a sprint. He then rose into the air, becoming a brilliant white streak across the sky.
Keeping my eyes to the right of the gate where the tent was supposed to be, I willed myself to be there. Nothing happened with the first two attempts, but the third time I burst into a flash of light. When I opened my eyes, I was standing at the doorway of the marble estate.
Hundreds of women draped in diaphanous multicoloured silks stood around the lush grounds like exquisite statues. About two hundred feet ahead, against the horizon, I saw a large red awning supported by poles: the welcome tent. Lounging under this canopy on divans were a number of people wearing colourful robes.
So this was the Guest House of Al-Jannah, the Muslim Paradise. It made me wonder just how many other kinds of Paradises were there and if this one was exclusively for Muslims.
A coterie of dark-skinned beardless youths clad in red loincloths milled around outside the red canopy as if waiting for orders. Dazzled, I wandered through the dreamy gardens, lulled into a peaceful reverie. The air was heavy with the smell of night-blooming jasmine. On my right a delicate pink marble fountain gushed a stream of milk and on my left a stone-lined trough filled with fragrant honey meandered through flowerbeds of white lilies and red tulips. A multitude of trees dotted the lawns as far as my eye could see. Their branches drooped under the weight of ripe fruit, their blossoms dripping nectar. Even the grass was manicured to perfection.
I was about a hundred feet from the awning, pleasurably immersed in this otherworldly serenity of my surroundings, when a swell of agitated voices rose up in the air. The severed head of a bearded man landed about twenty feet from me and rolled across the ground like a bowling ball, stopping beneath a wall of stones supporting the stream of flowing honey. I froze where I stood.
A moment later, a human leg sailed through the air and landed just a couple of feet from where I was standing. I dropped to my knees, retching, when I heard a woman’s voice shouting my name. Standing up, I saw a woman wrapped in a flowing black burqa racing towards me. She halted just a few inches from me and lifted her veil. I gasped when I saw her face.
‘Laila!’ I whispered. She looked ravishingly young and beautiful.
‘Ismael! Where have you been?’ she said, throwing herself in my arms, sobbing and burying her face in my chest.
I stroked her hair and surveyed the area that was teeming with women laughing and talking in small groups. They seemed unfazed by the flying dismembered appendages, as if it was just business as usual around here. Laila pulled herself away from me and repositioned her veil over her face.
‘You’d better stop looking around. They won’t dare lay a finger on you here, not as long as I, your lawful wife, am with you.’
‘Looking around?’ I yelled, as if she was an idiot. ‘Didn’t you see what just landed here? Look at that!’ Baffled by her indifference, I pointed to the carnage at my feet.
‘It’s a big problem here in Jannah,’ she said.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this information. To be honest, her burqa bothered me more than anything else at the moment. Last time I saw her she was practically naked.
‘Why in the hell are you wearing that burqa?’
‘Married women must wear full hijab here, Ismael,’ she replied quite seriously. As I started to speak, I was shocked to see Chacha Khidr over her shoulder. He was sprinting toward us with a burlap sack in his hand.
‘I’m just so happy to see you, Ismael,’ Laila said. ‘I know it’ll be a little confusing for you at first, but soon you’ll—’
‘I’m happy to see you too, but I’m still not so sure about that burqa. How did you get here?’
‘It was your headband. It worked! Pir Pul Siraat tracked me down, but we couldn’t find you. Xenobia and her bitches had that dump of theirs camouflaged by methods known only to them.’
Upon hearing the name of Pir, I was filled with a mixture of excitement and terror. I had a lot of explaining to do, having arrived in Paradise without the book and the headband.
‘Where is my headband?’ I asked her.
‘Pir has it.’
I remained quiet. The meeting with Pir wasn’t about to go well, that much I knew.
‘How did you do there in my absence?’ She narrowed her big black eyes in an interrogative stare.
The last thing I needed right now was to be reminded of my days as Xenobia’s sex slave.
‘I survived by dying.’ I avoided her gaze and looked over her shoulder at Chacha. ‘Look what he is doing.’ Laila turned around, and we both watched as he gathered the human remains and put them in his sack. Once all the pieces were stowed and the sack tied up, he walked over to a stream of fresh water and washed his hands. His appearance hadn’t changed a bit, and nor had his job!
‘Now you see the scope of the problem, Babu?’ Chacha asked, looking at me with the sparkling eyes I remembered.
‘Wait a minute, Chacha.’ I walked over to him. ‘Are you telling me that all those knuckle-heads blowing themselves up on earth are actually landing here, in Paradise, in bits and pieces?!’ I was shocked and acutely aware of the fact that Abba’s Mujahid Vest probably had been used in about two-third of the cases.
‘Not all, but only those whose desire for Jannah has become a greed. Desire, if not coupled with need, becomes destructive,’ he said, standing up and hoisting the sack over his shoulder. ‘The world is not some place which is located over there, far away from here. It exists within the world, but behind an invisible curtain.’ He turned and began walking toward the awning, then stopped and turned around. ‘Now you’ve seen with your own eyes the kind of mess we must deal with over here. And you’re going to help us clean it up,’ he continued, patting his sack, and walking away. ‘Follow me. Pir is waiting for you.’
I recalled his words when I met with him for the first time on my Ayahuasca journey back in New York. Babu, you’re going to help us clean up a big mess. I remembered him emptying his sack on the floor of Pir’s quarter in Shah Jamal. Delicate and subtle! I am fed up with being delicate and subtle. It’s time for action. A military action.
What felt so gratifying was that despite all my spectacular failures on the Path to High Knowledge, I was still in play and still relevant to the mission, whose details had just begun to emerge from the thick fog of my adventures.
Next I remembered the words of Pir. Khalifa has something very special planned, a real spectacle. If he’s not stopped very soon, this world and the Next will need a major cleanup that will stretch into the not-so-foreseeable future. Without that book, he won’t be able to bring his plans to completion. Your job, Ismael, is to help us stop the man in his tracks.
I began to sense the scope of my mission. It was a big deal for sure, though how big I had no clue. What was I going to tell Pir about the book? Considering the number of waffled pages in that thing, it was sure to be packed with enough power to help transport a whole village to Paradise. Had I not bumped into Laila the other night, I would have landed straight here in Jannah after having ingested just one tiny stamp off its page. And then there was this backup copy still on the loose somewhere in that hellhole of a place scarier than the real Hell. Was Khalifa planning a mass exodus to Jannah? If that was the case, how could I, single-handedly, stop it from happening?
As Laila and I strolled behind Chacha, I wondered if his human carrion could be put back together in the form of a living, breathing human. But there were more important things to think about so I took a deep breath and braced myself for Pir.
As we neared the red awning, the dark-skinned boys arranged themselves in a single line, their hands clasped over their navels and their heads bowed. We walked past them and stepped into the shade of the canopy. Inside I saw Tarzan and Pir Pul Siraat sitting on a richly draped divan that looked like the throne of a legendary emperor. Like Ottoman sultans, they lounged among cushions of red velvet, their backs resting against bolsters of rich golden brocade.
A couple of legless marble slabs floated in the air around the lounge, laden with baskets filled with all kinds of fruits: pineapples, apples, guavas, mangoes, bananas and pears. There was even cut watermelon, red and white grapes, cherries and multicoloured berries. There were platters of dates, figs and olives, cheeses of countless varieties; jars of jams, honey, juices and wines; breads of all shapes and sizes. It looked exactly like the gourmet section of a high-end kosher grocery store in Manhattan.
Tarzan had grown; he was now taller and more filled out. Dressed in a purple robe with intricate gold embroidery around the collar and cuffs, he looked like the prince from a fairytale. Only a couple of days ago, he was a handsome teenager with a bright smile, selling bhang papads out of his carry-on stall in Fortress Stadium as he repeatedly pulled on the loop of his fake martyr vest. I also remembered his expertise with explosives and his ability to control as stubborn a mind as Wali’s.
Tarzan’s face broke into a broad smile when our eyes met. For some odd reason I felt sad looking at him.
Draped in a voluminous, shimmering green robe, Pir smoked a cigarette and looked us over. But unlike Tarzan, he wasn’t smiling. He wore a black headband without any insignia and looked quite worried.
‘Welcome to Paradise, sir,’ Tarzan said to me, standing up and throwing his arms in the air. His face was radiant with joy.
As I hugged Tarzan, my eyes caught sight of a metal cage sitting on the grass beyond the far end of the awning. It was surrounded by a dozen heavenly beauties who giggled and stared at whatever was inside the cage.
‘Thank you, Tarzan. I’m so very glad to see you.’ Cautiously, I moved over to Pir who didn’t get up to greet me. After shaking my hand, he gestured for me to sit on one of the divans across from him. Laila sat beside me while Chacha bounded over the lawn toward the cage.
‘Ismael, do you know why you are here?’ Pir asked in a low angry voice as he nailed me with a look more than furious.
‘I am here because of you.’
‘Correct!’
‘Do you have any idea what it took to get you here?’
I remained silent.
‘I was forced to lie to get you out of the hands of Munkar and Nakir.’ I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. I recalled my grave, my water-boarding session at the hands of those two deadly angels, the ceaseless buzzing of my penis and the squealing mass of rats ready to devour me. And then how things changed. I remembered the teary-eyed Munkar’s words: We’ve been told that you’ve passed all the necessary steps to gain entry into Paradise.
‘I’m sorry.’ I was well aware he knew what I was thinking.
‘You’ve screwed up. Seriously. Not once but twice.’
‘I am the one who screwed up,’ Laila spoke, her voice cold and flat. ‘Ismael can’t be blamed for something he had no control over.’
‘Lady, I am not addressing you. Please be quiet. This is between him and me,’ said Pir, picking up a tattered book from the divan beside him and holding it toward me. The book’s black leather binding had been chewed up very badly. ‘Thanks to your brilliant work, Jannah is now populated with monkeys.’
‘But—’
‘There’s no but!’ Pir roared, skewering me with his glance. He then looked at Laila and his expression began to soften. ‘Not that I have anything against this lovely lady, but Ismael,’ he continued, pausing for a moment as if considering what to say, ‘You were supposed to come here alone, by yourself, not with a companion. Your only task was to deliver this book to me, safely and in one piece.’ He flicked the ash off his cigarette into a white porcelain ashtray. ‘I want to know exactly what happened. Don’t leave out even the smallest detail,’
I glanced at Laila. Her face was composed but there was terror in her eyes.
‘Go on. Tell them the truth. It’s okay. He can’t do anything for we’re a married couple now,’ she whispered to me. ‘Just don’t mention Hoor Afza.’
Recalling the events of the night in that ruined bathroom was like viewing the past through a stereoscope, for they seemed to have transpired simultaneously both a lifetime ago and just last night. I told him how I ran into Laila—whom I had known from my earlier visit to the hospital—outside the emergency room and how I was about to get myself a flashlight from the drug store across the street when the red lights appeared on Jail Road. I was left with no choice but to run inside in the dark, hoping to find the book before it ended up in the wrong hands and how Laila helped me with her lighter. Without that I would never have found my way in the dark.
I paused and scratched my head, trying to conjure some plausible scenario that would explain Laila’s presence in the Dump. But everything just sounded lame and unconvincing. I knew Pir wasn’t buying my explanation.
‘And then you started moving furniture,’ Pir said. ‘Right?’
Lowering my gaze, I bit my lips. Thankfully, Laila came to my rescue, breaking the painful silence that was accentuated by Pir’s searing gaze. ‘Please. I’ll tell you exactly what happened.’ Laila stood up and faced the divan where my two benefactors sat. ‘Leaving Ismael in the bathroom, I was called to the emergency room to register a head-injury case which had just arrived. When I got there they told me the patient had died. I don’t know where it came from, but a strong feeling occurred to me that Ismael’s life was in danger. So I ran back to the bathroom and it turns out I was right,’ she said, nodding with satisfaction.
‘I found him lying on the floor. He wasn’t breathing so I’d no choice but to start giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was dying right before my eyes! What choice did I have? The next thing I knew, we were lying completely naked beside a waterfall in some wilderness.’
Laila’s answer startled me. She seemed to be telling the truth; and if she was, it was more than likely we both had died in that accursed bathroom. But if she was lying, wow, she was really good at it.
‘Interesting,’ Pir muttered, glancing at Tarzan, not certain if he believed her. ‘What do you have to say about all this, lieutenant?’
‘I think they crash-landed in the Dump because the power of a single ticket meant for only one person, which Ismael sir put under his tongue, got split between two people during the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. One ticket wasn’t strong enough to propel two bodies all the way to Paradise,’ Tarzan proclaimed.
‘You make an excellent point,’ Pir replied. Then he glanced at Chacha Khidr who was involved in an animated conversation with a knot of hooris beside the cage. ‘But that’s only a partial reason,’ he added slowly, looking at me and shaking his head. He looked disappointed. ‘You create the kind of world you’ve been intending, secretly or otherwise. Sometimes an intention lurks in one’s mind like a snake in a thicket,’ Pir continued without taking his eyes off me.
I knew what he was trying to say. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t my fault that I harboured the kind of intention he was referring to: of having an unlimited supply of virgins in the afterlife. First, I wasn’t conscious of it. Second, it was Abba who had embedded his indelible footprints on my mind ever since I was a child.
‘Perhaps the intention you’re talking about is part of my genetic makeup, my upbringing, maybe even my fate. But I can’t do anything about that,’ I offered, in a bid to absolve myself of the guilt he was trying to impose on me.
Pir seemed ready to reply but he looked at Laila and then settled back into his cushion. I figured he didn’t want to say anything classified in front of her.
Why was sex so jealously regulated on earth and so utterly unregulated in Jannah? The memory of my seven lust-free orgasms in the Intiqaal Lounge was still fresh in my mind. Clearly, having sex was not the issue here. It was all about where one should preferably be having it. I knew Pir was reading my thoughts and would enlighten me at some point. And where were the male equivalents of the hooris?
‘Those monkeys in that cage have probably taken a few squares each from the book. That’s probably how they ended up here,’ Pir explained, his anger now gone. ‘Tarzan, any idea what we should do with them?’ Pir narrowed his eyes as his face broke into a mischievous smile.
I breathed a sigh of relief at the change in direction this conversation was taking. If Pir grilled me on how the damn book got into the hands of the monkeys, I would have to concoct another elaborate lie, something I clearly wasn’t very good at and, of course, I feared Pir was reading my mind. Thinking this, he stood up and walked over to me.
‘Ismael, now we’ve got the book, and we’ve got you out of the hands of Munkar and Nakir. We wasted time so we must get back to work immediately.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I was relieved to be safe with Pir and back on track.
‘And don’t forget, you still haven’t been reunited with your father,’ he said, attempting to orient my short-circuited existential GPS.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said again.
An angel in a white robe appeared overhead, circled once, then landed beside Pir. He was a good six feet tall, fair, young, with a trimmed red beard and was very handsome. The red tips of his otherwise white wings matched the colour of his cowboy boots.
‘Apollo!’ Pir said, turning toward the angel. ‘What are you doing here in Jannah on a fine day like this?’
The angel whispered something to Pir, then took a couple of steps away to stand erect like a guard with his hands clasped behind his back while he stared unblinking past us.
‘Ismael, someone from the Greek quarters would like to meet with you,’ Pir said.
‘Greek quarters?’ I asked, feeling Laila’s fingernails biting into my arm.
‘That’s where the pagans live,’ she whispered in my ear.
‘Pagans? In Paradise?’ I asked.
‘There’re all kinds of paradises in Paradise,’ Pir said. ‘There’s a Christian Paradise, that’s where most angels receive their education. Then there’s one for the Jews, and an Islamic Paradise you already know about. There’s one for the Hindus, one for the Buddhists, another for the Zoroastrians and so on. And there’s one called the Greek Quarter.’
‘Who wants to see you there?’ Laila whispered to me.
‘I have no idea.’ I squeezed her hand and stood up. I was excited, but at the same time a little anxious at this new development. If I made any wrong moves, chances were better than ever that I would spend another lifetime wandering about a world crazier than the Dump. God help me, I muttered to myself. God, please help me.
‘Your ride is here,’ Pir said, as he pointed at the angel and grinned through closed lips. Finally, he had cracked a smile. ‘I want you back here soon. You’ve got work to do,’ he added.
‘I’ll be back—soon,’ I said, wondering what that meant. For my current location was clearly outside time.
Apollo did look like an honest and hardworking being—as opposed to Fukraeel who radiated contempt for all things human and oozed a fondness for anything shady and unwholesome. As soon as Apollo took my hand we became streaks of light across the horizon.